Friday, June 25, 2010

Dirt and Dogs Overnight

We camped at the edge of a small canyon. The sun had set but the cloudless sky, and maybe the air itself, was still glowing with the remains of the day. We gathered twigs and sticks and our small fire began to burn as the sky faded into a darker glow of moonlight.

Low manzanita scrub wrapped red branches around our cliff-side seats. Pines pointed out stars in the luminous sky. Nighthawk cries fell from above and the air vibrated with their diving wings. The hushing sound of water rose gently up from the deeper shadows of the canyon and lapped against the sandstone cliffs.

***

A few hours earlier we had left the truck behind, carrying all we needed for the night. Trina and I had sleeping gear on our handlebars, other bags tied to our bikes, and smaller backpacks. Trina's brother Derrell had kept it simple with a bigger pack. He had also kept it simple with a singlespeed, hardtail bike, while we were riding our multi-geared full-suspension bikes. Zeek and Sprocket, the two dogs, were equipped with four-foot-drive and bundles of enthusiasm. (We carried their food.)

Our purpose, on the surface at least, was to ride, sleep, and ride some more. We rode up a dusty road that turned into dusty track that turned into a dusty trail. Pinyon and juniper and a taste of the desert. As the canyon narrowed, the dust subsided and the moisture of the creek elbowed into green meadows and bushes alongside the trail.

The riding was smooth and flowing and our loads were light enough that we were grinning as we pedaled along. An upstream ride that feels like a downstream ride is a good thing on a bike. We rode steadily while the dogs happily romped along.

As the sun dropped we plunged into the shadow of the canyon and rode on, dodging oak branches and feathering our legs through waving grass. But then we emerged back into sunlight where the creek poured from beaver ponds and wider meadows.

It was too lovely a spot to leave immediately. And it was dinner time. Trina and I cooked our simple fare on a tiny stove on the mud bank of a pond while Derrell threw a line into the water and dreamed of fish dinner. The dogs chased scents and tried to tangle Derrell's line. Despite the "help" he pulled three little trout from the ponds. Lovely but small, they were all returned to the water and we ate the food we'd brought.

A muskrat swam past. A beaver stuck a head out to check us out, then popped back underwater and away. Mosquitoes buzzed and bit. We packed our dinner gear, walked our bikes across the rickety sticks of a beaver dam and rode on.

We rode narrow track through scented sage, crossed the creek again, then pushed and huffed up steeper trail to the top of the ridge. The sun dropped off the far side of the plateau and in the slowly falling darkness, we found our cliffside camp.

***

I suppose the deeper purpose of our trip was to do what small bands of humans and their animals have been doing for much longer than they've been delivering mail, or building cabinets or fixing bikes. Maybe even longer than they've been telling stories. We were moving across the land, aware of our surroundings, alert for danger or challenge. We were looking around ourselves to find the resources we'd need to thrive.

Not that it was very difficult for us to thrive. But we could still make good choices and bad choices. We made a good choice of camp. Safe, sound and scenic, with a nice layer of soft-ish pine needles to put our sleeping pads over. But we made a few poor choices as well.

We had tried to keep our gear light enough that the riding would be fun instead of a drudgery. We'd succeeded at that. But maybe just a little too much at the expense of our nighttime comfort. No one slept very well as the night cooled. Derrell slept okay until the wee hours, when he got cold. And Trina fought the cold and a punctured air mattress all night.

I slept alright despite being a bit chilly. It did help to have Zeek tucked in with me, except for the half dozen times he had to get up in the night to stare into the darkness to make sure there wasn't any danger heading our way.

***

I woke up on the morning of the longest day of the year to the red ball of the sun burning dimly on the horizon through thin hazy clouds that looked like smoke from distant fires. The dogs and I wandered away from camp in the half light. Red, white, yellow and purple clusters of flowers sprouted from beds of gravel. Birds twittered morning songs. The light touched softly on the cliffs across the canyon. Pine scented the cool air.

Back in camp, the sun at last burned through the haze and was bright on the two sleeping bags where Trina and Derrell, warm at last, lay sleeping. I fueled the little stove and cooked myself a simple breakfast, and soon they were up, hungry, and we cooked theirs, too. Then we scattered the cold ashes of our night's fire, packed our bags, and rode off into the day.

We left the edge of the canyon behind and traveled into open country, wide spaces of grass and sage where dark pines stood sentinel. The two-track became a dirt track became a dirt road as we rode upward and into the wind on the gently sloping plain. The scrub grew thicker, the pines grew closer and the white-trunked aspen grew more abundant as we moved along. We found a small runnel of water where we could fill our bottles.

In the early afternoon, we turned off the road onto a thin ribbon of trail that wound through meadows and forest, past small streams and amidst more flowers. We wound our way happily along and then stopped at a creek crossing for lunch and a nap. Then we chased each other down the trail again until we popped out at a well traveled gravel road.

Our dogs do not plan for the future. That may be part of what we like about them. There is no way to get them to drink more water when it may be a long way until the next. And though we stopped frequently to rest and enjoy a spot, they didn't rest. They were running and sniffing and exploring and bounding around during every "rest" stop we made. So by the time we hit the gravel road, they were starting to slow down a bit.

Trina offered to take them and shortcut a few miles down the gravel road. While Derrell and I took a longer loop, away, and then down a nice narrow slice of trail that cut down a little valley. It started steep and forested, then slowly opened up to more meadows and flowers, flowing downward and encouraging us to ride faster then we had all day.

We tracked past a blue reservoir, then churned more gravel road until we met back up with Trina and the dogs. They had gone slowly and had gotten a bit of rest. We all had a bit more rest and a snack. Then we hiked our bikes down a rocky, twisted trail that led back to the canyon beaver ponds where three fish had been caught the day before.

From there, there was nothing left to do. Except to enjoy more miles of sweet descending singletrack that wound and thrummed through forest, meadow and scrub. Trina and Derrell surged ahead, while I bike-strolled along with the tuckered dogs. We were all smiling and tired as we pedaled and trotted from the moist canyon into the last dusty miles.